The invention relates to the making of brushes, brooms and similar commodities in general, and more particularly to improvements in methods of and apparatus for supplying bristles to machines wherein the bristles are processed into brushes, brooms and the like. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in methods of and apparatus for manipulating loose bristles, namely bristles which are not supplied in prepacked batches.
Loose bristles can be supplied by hand to a so-called transfer element which is used in a brush making or like machine to deliver tufts of brushes to an inserting tool. The latter inserts the tufts into the body of a brush. Manual delivery of loose bristles to the transfer element requires a certain amount of skill, especially during refilling of the magazine for bristles because one hand must press the remaining bristles against the rapidly moving transfer element with the exertion of a relatively large force.
It is also known to automatically tamp the bristles in the magazine of a brush making or like bristle processing machine. Reference may be had to commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,491 granted Sept. 5, 1978 to Walter Steinebrunner et al. for "Method of and apparatus for feeding bristles in brush making machines". This patent discloses means for supplying packaged batches or bundles of bristles into the upper portion of a duct, means for removing the wrappers in a median portion of the duct, and means for tamping the thus exposed batches of bristles in the lower portion of the duct above the path of movement of the transfer element. Packaged bundles normally from cylinders wherein a batch of parallel bristles is surrounded by a plastic hose or another suitable envelope. Bristles which are supplied in the form of packaged bundles are normally used for the making of fine brushes, such as tooth brushes, hair brushes, hand washing brushes and the like. Other types of apparatus which are used to remove wrappers from bundles of packaged or prepacked bristles are disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,603,913 (granted Aug. 5, 1986 to Benno Dorflinger et al. for "Apparatus for storing and manipulating bundles of bristles in brush making machines"), 4,610,481 (granted Sep. 9, 1986 to Walter Steinebrunner for "Apparatus for replenishing the supplies of bristles in the magazines of brush making machines") and 4,647,113 (granted Mar. 3, 1987 to Walter Steinebrunner for "Method of replenishing the supply of bristles in the magazines of brush making machines").
Bristles which are used for the making of larger brushes and brooms which are provided with stiff and relatively large bristles are also supplied in the form of packaged bundles. This presents problems because the cost of packaging such bundles is high and, since each product requires a relatively large number of bristles, bundles must be opened and delivered to the magazine of the processing machine at frequent intervals. This has led to proposals to store larger quantities of coarse bristles in receptacles in the form of cartons or boxes. The bristles in such receptacles are already cut to proper size for use in a processing machine or are to be cut to size in the processing machine proper. Receptacles are delivered to the processing machine and their contents are transferred into the magazine of the machine by hand. This is a tedious task and such mode of transferring loose bristles into the machine is not conducive to the making of large numbers of brushes or brooms per unit of time because each such product comprises at least one handful of bristles.